The present disclosure relates to a metal structure embedded in a dielectric material layer, and particularly to a back-end-of-line (BEOL) resistor including a patterned metallic layer embedded in a dielectric material layer and methods of forming the same.
A resistor is a passive component integrated into many semiconductor circuits to provide various useful functions. Typically, resistors in semiconductor circuits are formed employing front-end-of-line (FEOL) processing steps, which are performed before formation of the lowest level contact via structures. For example, resistors can be formed by patterning a doped polysilicon film or a metal semiconductor alloy during FEOL processing steps, thereby providing “FEOL resistors.”
Although a FEOL resistor tends to provide adequate functionality, each FEOL resistor also requires an area on a semiconductor substrate, which cannot be employed to form other semiconductor devices. Thus, unlike devices formed in BEOL levels, any area used up by an FEOL resistor cannot be employed for any other type of FEOL device such as field effect transistors, bipolar transistors, diodes, capacitors, etc.